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Thinking about stage monitoring


wro

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I dont wanna rely on bar monitors; if they are ever provided, they´re always faulty in my gigs. I dont wanna carry my own monitor as well, in principle. I was thinking in a more compact, portable way to hear myself.

A small mixer with some reverb, compression and eq. I could plug my mic into it, take that output and feed the FOH. Headphone out to me, could even be wired, i dont care. so in a quest for such a mixer i found the peavey pv6bt, but its output is P10. so i am not sure how i would connect that to the house mixer, which input is usually XLR. i know there are adapters, but i dont know if that´s ideal. i am afraid of introducing noise in the chain.

There are other mixers with built-in compression, reverb and XLR-out, but they are bigger and bulky.

has anyone gone that route for monitoring ? any advice ?

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Nah, Just get a self powered monitor. You can run them two different ways. You can run a cord to the PA mixer and run it off a Monitor send, or you can plug your mic into the monitor then run a send to the PA.

 

In either case, you can simply reach down adjust your EQ and gain.

 

An inexpensive one like this is about $200. If you have to run your own effects just get one of those vocal stomp box or mic mount type effects units and place it before the monitor and you're good to go. These are 100W and super light weight. Just pop it into a back pack with your mic and you're ready to rock.

 

This is excellent for practice too. You can plug in a CD or Cell phone, play your songs back as you sing with a mic anyplace.

 

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You may want to look at the Galaxy powered Hotspot or Nady powered nearfield monitors. You would need to mount them on a mic stand, but they're great for getting the sound where you need it [i have used both, and currently run a Nady driving 3 passive hotspots]. These are great for keyboard players [no stand needed for most].

 

The other way to go is IEMs, but there are a few issues, IMHO, especially if there is no sound person.

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My band has been using in-ear monitors for a few years. Expensive to go wireless, but easy to protect your own hearing, reduce chances for feedback, hear your voice clearly.

 

Some drawbacks though - disconnection from the band is the biggest one, and as I said, expensive to go wireless - which if you want to show personality on stage and move around, is kind of necessary. Unless you want to be Sia. I found a set of wireless mic transmitter and receiver in a pawnshop for $300 and by 'reverse' set up (using the receiver's headphone monitor out and putting a signal from the board into the transmitter) it works pretty well. However Shure has a much better sounding and easier to use set.

 

To get started, a pair of Shure in-ear monitors (ear buds for stage) a small headphone amp (so YOU can control the level) connected to the stage monitors or a line out from the mixer, and a fairly long cord to connect the two. That's a good start. If I don't have a bit of the music feeding in as well (just a bit of guitar, bass and drums) then I like to have a 'stage' mic that just feeds a little bit of the stage sound into my monitor mix. Or slightly pull one side out to hear the stage - I choose the side AWAY from the drummer :-D

 

If that works for you, then look for a wireless set.

 

With digital mixers, there's usually an Aux out that can be dedicated to your personal mix so you can dial up just the amount of other instruments you want. Plus, many use iPhone/iPad apps and you can adjust the mix from stage yourself, if your mix engineer is okay with that.

 

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